AR v1.10

[chronicking]

hello everyone. i'm new here and just started playing diablo 2. we've been playing the first one for almost a year now and have gone thru almost every noteworthy mod for that game. the Dark, HellfireFixed, Vkmods, etc etc.....

well we finally started on D2 and after researching a little in advance before starting out like we did on the first one, we came to find four mods that seem to fit our game style/preferences blah blah. Zy-El, Ancestral Recall, Median 2008, and Eastern Sun. i read much about some others but those seem to be the most acclaimed at the majority of the sites.

now to the questions............ i have read alot and from what i can tell AR 1.10 uses the Cube recipes listed from 1.07 AR. i was wondering if this is correct. does it also use all the recipes from 1.09+ - 1.10 original LOD? i was just wondering before i tried some of the original recipes and messed an item up. and the runes, are the runewords the same as in the LOD patches on AR?

one more and ill stop there for now. i noticed in the read me for median 2008 that each characters get bonuses for certain weapons. is this the same in the original game and most mods? i can't seem to find any info on this. eg. in the original Diablo the Barbarian got the bonus with the axe and so forth to the rest of the characters for that game.

thanx again and great site!!! very informative!

[the_bogan]

Welcome.

To be honest, I don't think you can compare Ancestral Recall to Median, Zy-EL or Eastern Sun.

To me, the other mods are intense gameplay altering mods. Ancestral Recall, (Which I'll call AR from now on) is simply an extension of the game itself. You can port your characters to and from normal LOD without any worries.

That doesn't mean it ain't alot of fun.

The non-realm runewords/recipes from 1.10 work in this mod, as far as I know. (I've tried all the normal one's I'd use and they work). In addition to the AR1.07 recipes, there are a few more, but sadly, the details appear to have been lost. (Doh, why did I have to bookmark pages, rather than downloading the details )

And for your last question, I don't believe that they get those bonuses in AR. I'm pretty sure it would have been mentioned in the read-me's.

Don't be afraid to ask if you've got any more questions.

[chronicking]

yes that is exactly why i chose AR to start out with first. we haven't even played the vanilla D2 yet. i wanted to play our first time around as close to the original D2 as possible, but i believe this may have backfired....... we fought blood raven last night in the burial grounds on AR and she looked like something out of an MC hammer video. i dunno......... so i ran thru the first act with a paladin today on vanilla 1.10 LOD and blood raven looked alot better. kinda like a phantom/zombie rogue [ which if im not mistaken , she is]. but anyway , still enjoying the mod minus the good blood raven graphics. i will probably run a side by side game of both with diff characters so i can actually compare the original to the mod [AR].

all this came about for us [ a small group of buddies that play late at night] when we came across the first game. we didn't know any better, to make along story short, and jumped right in to battlenet to play. well as i know u know, battlenet auto updates to 1.09d i think it is now on diablo one. all most all the good mods are made for 1.07 or earlier on the first game. that kinda messed us up. we didn't like the fact we had to start over just to play hellfire[not by blizzard or perhaps teh characters would've been compatible] i guess we could have tried a trainer to save / restore our characters but i'm not to keen on using trainers/cheaters. it kinda takes the fun out of the game manipulating your character. and i think sub consciously that's the fascination of the first game. the risk of losing your goods and what you make of your characters strengths and weaknesses over the span of the game[which for us was quite a while].

anyway, thanks for answering me questions so promptly. i commend sites like this for being so informative. it really helps late bloomers at diablo like me a whole lot. well hopefully AR has no more boss graphics let downs. BACK to the GAME!!! hahaha lata

[the_bogan]

In my opinion, you should play vanilla Diablo II LOD before playing any mods. That way, you get to appreciate the mod more for the differences from the main game.

I would go so far to say that vanilla D2 LOD is better than AR, because of the lack of specific drops. Corpsefire dropping a Stone of Jordan each game is a good example. Rakanishu dropping the Infernal Toolsset is anther.

You'll find that AR misses some gameplay, such as having to go through the first four levels of the Countesses Tower, or skipping the underground passage that links the Stony Field to the Dark Wood.

And, as you've noticed, alot of the main bosses (excluding act bosses) have been changed, to give us old timers a bit of a change

It's still a great mod, don't get me wrong. I just think you should play the normal D2 first.

Edit: Playing both concurrently seems like a great idea. Let us know how you go.

[chronicking]

yessir you're right. it is best to play the vanilla first. Act 1 is much more intense and a bit harder [seems to me] than AR. AR drops a bunch of goodies from the get go and like you already pointed out it's not random for the sub bosses. anyway i'm sure we'll give it a run as soon as we wear out the vanilla version.
the main attraction this game has for me are the skill trees. man.......so much better than hunting and buying spell books like in the first game. this actually makes your character more unique according to how you build him/her. in a nutshell D2/LOD is awesome!!! i was sure i would be dissappointed after being so engrossed in the first one. well done blizzard! is all i have to say about that.
i'm currently building an avenging pally. i set the necro on the shelf for a bit to get back to some old fashion melee, but i do intend to finish the necro i started and hopefully if i get the poison dagger and some synergies where i want them, he'll be able to melee a bit himself [hahaha backstabbing/running]. anywayz thanx for the advice and i'm sure we'll talk again because i have many technical questions about the game already..........as usual it seems. lata man

[chronicking]

i was wrong............. AR is alot harder, but i love it. what a great mod. it's a darn shame that all the important information is not available for this mod. from what i've gathered it's an accumulation of all the past versions of the mod except for the SE skills enhanced option. very good mod after playing the vanilla version thru nightmare. we finally had to add an inventory increase mod to the vanilla version to keep playing it. that's the main drag about that game. limited space.......... and limited drops as well. if you're playing on a small community LAN [3-5 players] it's hard to put sets together and really get alot of good stuff without spending countless hours into this game. i reccomend anyone playing this game anew get a mod with generous drops. not rediculous mind u but more so than what the game does naturally.

as far as AR goes, you level alot quicker and alot sooner in the game. which i like. you start getting powerful skill wise earlier in the game. i'm still in the early stages on this mod, so unless anyone objects i'll keep this thread alive as i can to let you know how i do with this thing. the date alone speaks for itself on this topic. this is truly a great video game, just like it's predecessor, to be continuously played and modified like it is.

thumbs up \m/